~~~
Dear Uzi,
If I had been given the chance to decide otherwise, if I had been a wiser man, or a smaller fool, I would have made certain that you would never have to look on a letter such as this. I would have never had to write it.
But I am not, and here we are.
I am your commander, Alexander Lyons. It is with a heavy heart that I write this letter to inform you of your loss.
You were killed on the Morning of October Fifth, 2065, in fierce combat with Destroyer. Your fireteam was flanked and pinned down by overwhelming fire from a battalion of Sangvis Ferri Vespids, led by the Sangvis Commander Doll, Destroyer. Of the twenty-doll team you were in, only M1903 Springfield returned alive.
As a restored and conscious doll from your mainframe, you likely have no memory of this encounter. Perhaps you only recall the dirty eye I gave your thigh-high stockings and bikini in the morning of the fight. Perhaps you remember the storm of bullets and mortars in the thick of the action. Perhaps you were the seasoned veteran of many losing fights, and this was just one of many. Perhaps you have died and lived again, many, many times, and you wonder why I, a commander of replaceable dolls such as you, would make a great deal of it.
How much do you remember, I wonder?
Do you remember the day you stepped into my office, fresh from the assembly lines of I.O.P.? I do. You clutched your deployment documents close to your chest and demanded to know what I was looking at. I asked you why you reported to a combat unit in a bikini and you slapped me. You hid in the spare dorm and locked the door, and it took seven hours for Springfield to get you out, just so I could give you your entry briefing.
Do you remember the day you first entered the Springfield Squad? I do. You were so excited that you shook my hand for an hour. You even asked to spend an entire night with Kalina, going through pile after pile of combat reports. You got eyebags after that. They were so deep, Astra even called you a panda!
Do you remember the day you first walked upon the battlefield? I do. You got so excited, you went through all of your magazines in the first five minutes. I had to lug a fresh box of mags all the way from my command post to your little dugout. There were five Jaegers shooting at me and Garand had to pick them off while I crawled through the rubble.
Do you remember the day you saved me? I do. You were the only doll there that day. We huddled up in that shallow firetrench for twenty cold hours while Rippers and Vespids tore through our command post and ripped out all the radio wiring. The wind was high and you were freezing, so I gave you my old jacket. You still haven't returned it.
I do not know how much of these you remember. But for me, the memories are many. They are vivid. As vivid as the day everything went wrong.
I must admit, Uzi, that I am a greedy commander. I am reckless. Horrid, even. For the slightest of advantages, the shortest of seconds, the tiniest slices of land-for these small and dumb things, I have asked you to do the difficult, even the impossible. As a doll who always fights from the front, you know this better than anyone else.
I have ordered you to attack observation and guard posts with your dummies under direct fire. I have ordered you to hound heavily defended convoys with Molotovs, when the enemy severely outnumbered you in both men and materiel. I have ordered you to hunt down and kill every scout and skirmisher in an AO. And on that day, when everything went wrong, I ordered you and your squad to go toe to toe with an Elite T-doll and an automatic Grenade Launcher.
You faced the difficult, even the impossible. And you did it, every single time. You stormed the positions. You torched the convoys. You chased the enemy from the battlefield, and gave Squad Springfield the time they needed to deploy.
And on that day, when your comrades hid left and right, you, like the magnificent bastard you were, stood up under fire.
When Destroyer stepped into view with a Grenade Launcher in each hand, you fought her tooth and nail with anything you had. And when you went down, you had drawn Destroyer far away from Springfield's Sniper Nest, and she made the shot. You made it all possible!
Uzi, you were a fighter!
You were the very best I could wish for. You were the reason M4 is here, safe, breathing, alive. You were the reason our dolls continue to dominate the battlefield. You were the bedrock to our fortress, the shield to our sword.
And I could not protect you.
Forgive me, Uzi. I have failed as your commander.
Sincerely,
Lex
~~~
"What a dum-dum you are, Commander. It wasn't like I did it for you."
The parchment crinkled quietly about Micro-Uzi's petite hands, slipped into her trenchcoat. In the blasting chill of the air-conditioned dorm, the paper glowed, a shred of warmth against her stockinged thigh. "I don't need such letters anyway, Commander. I'm just a mere T-doll…"
"Hey, Uzi. Did the commander write to you as well?"
Uzi looked up. Skorpion leaned in the doorway. Her blonde twintails swept curiously over her black jacket, over her yellow shirt, over the white envelope with a GnK-stamped seal, twirling playfully in her hands. "I've never received a handwritten letter from a commander before. I wonder what this one says..."
Teal eyes glistened under the fluorescent light.
"... Uzi?"
~+~Glory to Grifon~+~